Mexico is suffering its worst economic...

IT CAN'T HURT.

November 27, 1987

MEXICO CITY — IT CAN'T HURT. Mexico is suffering its worst economic crisis in modern times, with a $103 billion foreign debt, 140 percent inflation and a combined 50 percent rate of unemployment and underemployment. Having concluded that state-owned companies will only impede the nation as it tries to struggle out of the situation, the government has been getting rid of them. By summer of next year the government will have closed or sold off almost 70 percent of the 412 state-owned companies it had six years ago, officials said this week.